Ramaphosa op­ti­mistic that South Africa is ‘emerg­ing from strife and stag­na­tion’

HOPE had re­turned to South Africa af­ter a pe­riod of “strife and stag­na­tion” made worse by en­demic cor­rup­tion, Pres­i­dent Cyril Ramaphosa said this week as he wel­comed eight new diplo­mats – from the Nether­lands, Bel­gium, Den­mark, Thai­land, Peru, Nor­way, Kuwait and Sri Lanka – to Pre­to­ria.

“Your ex­cel­len­cies, we wel­come you to our coun­try at a time of re­newed hope.

“We are emerg­ing from a pe­riod of stag­na­tion and strife. Over the past few years, our econ­omy has per­formed poorly,” he said. “We are now firmly on the path of re­newal and re­build­ing.”

His an­nounce­ment came shortly af­ter news that the deputy pres­i­dent, cab­i­net min­is­ters, deputy min­is­ters, the speaker of the Na­tional Assem­bly, the chair­per­son of the Na­tional Coun­cil of Prov­inces, the deputy speaker, and the deputy chair­per­son, among oth­ers, would not re­ceive salary in­creases this year. |